Allison Davenport joined the ILRC in 2015 as a staff attorney based in California’s Central Valley, where she was born and raised. Prior to joining the ILRC, she was a clinical instructor with the International Human Rights Law Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law. At the clinic she directed the establishment of the Legal Support Program for undocumented students, the documentation of human rights abuses against LGBTI individuals in El Salvador, and the promotion of equal access to clean water in California. Allison practiced immigration law, first in private practice and then as founder of the immigration legal services program at Centro Legal de la Raza. Allison also formerly worked as a staff attorney with the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a JD and an MA in Latin American Studies. Allison speaks Spanish.
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Presenters
Erin Quinn
Erin Quinn is an attorney based in San Francisco. Her work focuses on building capacity of organizations and practitioners to assist immigrants. She conducts trainings on immigration law throughout the United States and provides legal expertise through the ILRC’s Attorney of the Day program. Erin has contributed to numerous ILRC publications as author or editor, including Removal Defense: Defending Immigrants in Immigration Court; Essentials of Asylum and many others. In addition, Erin works on issues related to immigration status and healthcare as well as consumer protection. She has published articles with LexisNexis Emerging Issues and American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).
Prior to coming to the ILRC, Erin represented immigrants in all aspects of their immigration matters, with an emphasis on removal defense and complex cases. She was owner and attorney at her own firm for 5 years after defending immigrants as an associate at the Law Office of Robert B. Jobe. Her experience in immigration law and policy includes working as a fellow for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, EU headquarters in Belgium; clerking for the Immigration Court of San Francisco; and teaching courses as a lecturer at California State University, East Bay. Erin is on the Advisory Council for the Northern California Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), in which she serves as Consumer Protection Coordinator.
Erin holds a joint degree in law and public policy (JD/MPP) from the University of Michigan, where she was co-editor of Michigan Journal of Gender & Law. She received her undergraduate degree from University of California, Los Angeles, where she majored in English and Anthropology. She is a member of the California Bar and proficient in Spanish.
Allison Davenport
Krsna Avila
Krsna is based in San Francisco, California, and focuses on immigration enforcement issues, including state and local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration agencies in unlawfully deporting immigrants, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals advocacy.
Krsna joins the ILRC with a wealth of personal and professional immigration experience. Having immigrated to the United States with his parents when he was only four months old, Krsna grew up as an undocumented immigrant. Prior to law school, Krsna worked closely with the ILRC to establish a legal services program at Educators for Fair Consideration. As their Legal Services Manager, Krsna provided legal support to undocumented youth throughout the country.
Directly feeling the effects of our unjust immigration system, Krsna quickly became interested in attending law school in order to understand the legal system from a different lens.
While in law school, Krsna worked at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Washington D.C. and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California where he supported litigation regarding free speech and racial discrimination issues. He also participated in the Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic, where he helped represent a client before the Board of Immigration Appeals. Krsna also volunteered with the European Council on Refugees and was an editorial member for the Cornell Legal Information Institute U.S. Supreme Court Bulletin.
Krsna earned his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Davis, and his law degree from Cornell Law School where he received the 2017 Freeman Award for Civil-Human Rights for his commitment to civil rights and public service.